I still don’t think the comparison holds up. Cochrane was portrayed as an unstable genius, but he was still supposed to be a genius who ultimately led humanity to the stars. He was also brave enough to test his spaceship himself.
I also have a hard time imagining Elon ever saying “I don’t want to be a statue!” after being informed he’d be a legendary figure in the future.
I have a hard time imagining Elon saying “I’ll be the rocket’s first test pilot!”
I feel like a fascist is ripe for being satirized by one of our greatest writers.
And that’s partly due to the work of J. Michael Straczynski (creator of Bayblon 5 and other TV, movie, and comic media) who was appointed to be Harlan Ellison’s literary executor, who also completed the compilation and publishing of The Last Dangerous Visions.
Yeah, I’ve been saying that we’ll colonize Mars when Antarctica becomes overcrowded. Antarctica is way more habitable and way, way, way more accessible.
And it’s still crazy difficult and expensive to do an emergency medical evacuation when something goes wrong there.
Sure, but Vonnegut isn’t around now. I’m sure there is someone more current who is satirizing Musk.
Scalzi did in “Kaiju Preservation Society”, but that was more idiot rich tech bro than fascist.
Same thing. There is a strong fascist undercurrent in that book, I’d argue. Not from Scalzi, but from his framing.
As I understand it, Charlie Stross might be interested if he weren’t so utterly repulsed by Elon, who he exclusively refers to as Dilbert Stark. He’s pretty harsh on the entire billionaire techbro culture, as seen by how they are often the villains in his Laundry Files novels.
(squick warning) As for the offer this post is about, well, is this his idea of droit du seigneur? Or does he think his seed will be a valuable protein source after seeing that people actually use sperm in recipes? No, he’s just so self-deluded he thinks people want his genes and aren’t interested in paternity payments.
One of my favorite parts of that book is when the protagonist tries to bluff their way out of a deadly showdown with the story’s villain by mentioning “your buddy Elon’s satellites…” and the villain is clearly wounded by the implication that he’d be friends with someone like Elon Musk.
Tbf, Antarctica is a fragile natural environment.
Not to take away from your point, which I think is correct, but I would hope we have better sense than allowing large scale settlement in Antarctica.
Crewed.
But yeah, 20 years might just be possible if Starship (or anything built by Boeing) is part of the mission architecture.
He already had the chance to say it, and didn’t.
Not to mention tons of stuff on Etsy, etc:
https://www.etsy.com/de/listing/853240389/elon-musk-beton-buste-tesla-spacex
We should stop screwing up the mostly pleasant biosphere we’re already living in before we start to colonise Mars
Human foibles are perennial and timeless and satire doesn’t need to be contemporary with its subjects to be meaningful. Nor is it any insult to Vonnegut to say that his story is as relevant now as it was when he wrote it, and satirizes someone who he probably never knew about but who has the qualities he makes fun of.
Amongst the many things that Elon has demonstrated supreme disregard for, are “protecting natural environments” and “asking permission”.
I’m half surprised that he hasn’t already built a supervillain base on top of Mawson’s Hut and declared it to be a staging post and training base for his Mars project.
Leaving Mr. Musk’s personal breeding programme1) aside for a moment…
If anybody wants to put his “vision” for Mars into any perspective: it is basically Bob Zubrin’s “Mars Direct”. Mind you, not the actual research paper (which has issues if you ask me), but the version for general consumption, “The Case for Mars”. With the tricky sciencey stuff mostly leaved over and skipped straight to Zubrin’s version of “manifest destiny”.
1) Does anybody know whether he keeps an edition of the Bhagavad Gita on his desk?
You by no means have to feel the same way, but I feel that putting Vonnegut “into context with” Musk by citing a story by Vonnegut that directly satirizes Musk’s ludicrous desire to send his sperm into space is a compliment to Vonnegut and a put-down of Musk.
With fascist billionaire fuckwits like Musk influencing things, I’ll count us lucky if humanity even exists in 20 years.
